


Drink It In

by bookishandbossy



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Getting Together, five things fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-04
Updated: 2015-05-04
Packaged: 2018-03-29 02:04:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3878227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookishandbossy/pseuds/bookishandbossy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four times Peggy and Daniel don't get to finish their drinks, and one time they do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drink It In

_Black coffee, gone cold_  
“Any sign of him?” Peggy whispered. After getting a tip off from an anonymous phone call (though that voice had sounded suspiciously like Angie, whose new job as a chorus girl seemed to inevitably get her involved with shady characters), they'd been able to pinpoint the location of Flash Keegan, notorious mobster and possible Soviet spy. Now, if he ever decided to come out of that location, a new nightclub called the Pink Flamingo, they'd have him. 

“None,” Daniel shrugged. “But then, we're stuck waiting by the front entrance so...”

“What self-respecting mobster ever used the front entrance?” Peggy slumped back against the corner they were hiding in and sighed. Getting to go along on this mission had been presented to her like some kind of grand reward—save all of Manhattan, get the graveyard shift of the least important part of a stakeout—and at first, she'd even held on to the hope that something might, well, happen. But then they'd hit hour four with no sign of Flash Keegan, or even one of his over-muscled bodyguards, and she was longing for the comfort of her own flat and a cup of coffee, preferably laced with something stronger. “How much more can one man drink?” she wondered. 

“They say that if it's got a paper umbrella in it, Keegan'll drink it. Coffee?” Daniel unscrewed the thermos one-handed and held it out to her. “It's cold, but it's not bad. I made it myself.”

“Not bad at all,” she said appreciatively and took another sip. “You're a man of many talents, Agent Sousa.” He flushed a shade of red deep enough that she could see it in the semi-darkness and she couldn't help smiling to herself. About him, about his good heart, about him being there, steady beside her as he kept watch over the nightclub entrance, about the way he trusted her to hold up her end of the stakeout without asking twice. “Thank you,” she added. “For the coffee. And for everything. You're, ah—I think we might just make a good team.”

That was when Flash Keegan burst out of the front entrance, overcoat with diamond buttons slung over one arm and a bored—looking blonde on the other. Five minutes later, Keegan was handcuffed and in SSR custody, his various bodyguards were unconscious, the blonde was happily detailing Keegan's business operations to Daniel, and Peggy was right. They made a damn good team. 

 

_Manhattan, garnished with a maraschino cherry_  
They were inside the nightclub this time, undercover and trying to see if the second trumpet really was selling military secrets to the Russians, and no one should be allowed to look as good in a suit as Daniel did. (And the strange thing almost wasn't the thought, but the fact that she didn't feel guilty about having it.) 

“We should dance,” she said, stirring her drink idly and trying to keep her tone casual. “Keep up our cover.”

“I don't really dance anymore. Could be hazardous,” Daniel replied, smile tugging at the corner of his mouth and almost involuntarily, she found herself smiling back. “Not sure I even remember how.”

“Lucky for you, I'm a very good teacher.” Men who didn't know how to dance happened to be her specialty. “We'll slow dance—you can just hold on to me and sway. Easy as anything.” She stood up from the table and held her hand out to him.  
“I haven't danced in a long time, since before the war.” 

“Neither have I.”

The way that they danced didn't have any discernible steps or pattern. It was awkward, slightly clumsy, and they bumped into at least two other couples on the dance floor, who shot them terrifying glares before Peggy responded with an even more terrifying one. Her dress nearly got torn, he almost tripped over a spare clarinet, and it was absolutely lovely. 

It didn't last long, before the second trumpet slipped out the back door with a suspiciously large instrument case and half the nightclub population pulled out their concealed weapons, but she found herself thinking about it much later, staring at her ceiling at four in the morning and giggling for no reason at all.

Because while they were swaying in place, he'd kept up a running commentary on the other couples around them. Because he'd looked over at her like she was something rare and special, both when she was dancing with him and when she was taking one of the various armed men out with a well-aimed punch. Because maybe, after all this time, she was letting herself move on.

_Black and white milkshake, two spoonfuls of whipped cream._  
“We're meeting in soda fountains now?” Daniel raised an eyebrow at her, but the effect was somewhat spoiled by the whipped cream smeared across his top lip. 

“I didn't want to risk us being overheard,” Peggy said crisply as she slid into the booth across from him. “I have a proposition for you. Not, ah, that kind of proposition.” He raised the other eyebrow and tried hard not to blush in any way. It had been a key point of secret agent training.

“I'm starting a new division of the SSR, called SHIELD. The Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division. You wouldn't believe how long it took to come up with the right initials to spell out SHIELD,” she added. “The name...it's to honor Steve's legacy, to create something that'll go right where the SSR went wrong. I'm going to find the kinds of agents that get overlooked, the kind that no one suspects and that notice what everyone else doesn't because of it. Rather like us.” Peggy took a deep breath, wrapping her hand more securely around her coffee cup, and Daniel wondered faintly if she was nervous, impossible as the fact seemed. “Which is why I want you to be a part of the team.”

“Me? Really?” He cursed himself for the words as soon as they were out of his mouth.

“You, really. I trust you—quite a lot, really—and there's no one I'd rather have on my team,” she said firmly and reached her hand across the table to brush her fingers against his reassuringly. “Shall we shake on it?”

She didn't even try to ignore the spark that she felt when they did.

_Martini, stirred not shaken_  
Daniel was working late again, still at his desk and surrounded by stacks of reports, when she finally locked up her office. They were always the last two people in the office—her with endless bits of business that required her attention and him, she was beginning to suspect, to keep her company. In fact, as she peered at the reports on his desk, she was fairly sure that he'd finished all of those yesterday and that, underneath the piles of paper, he was doing the crossword from the Times. “Good night,” she called softly from the door.

“Good night,” he glanced up from his work to smile at her and then she smiled back and then they were just standing there grinning at each other like a pair of idiots which, considering they were both highly trained agents, was rather alarming. What if the Soviets sent more spies in and her reaction time was reduced because she was too busy smiling at Daniel and wondering whether or not it was the right time to ask him to ask her again if she'd like to have a drink with him? This was just all rather...strange. As it turned out, Peggy was awfully good at playing a femme fatale or damsel in distress on assignment, turning everything men thought they knew about her back on them, but she sometimes wondered if she'd been playing a role too long to know what to do when it came to someone who seemed to simply want her. To even figure out what the Peggy Carter of now—older and wiser and a little bit sadder—was like when she fell for someone. 

But right then, watching Daniel frown down at the crossword while trying to be sneaky about stealing glances at her, she thought that maybe they could figure it out together, navigate their way through being a new kind of team just like they'd navigated their way through creating SHIELD. Because she wasn't going to miss any more dates or dances or drinks. “Daniel,” she said finally and took a step towards his desk. “I was wondering if maybe, if it isn't too late, we could go get that drink?”

“For a drink with you,” he said slowly, looking back at her in a way that was bright and fierce and intent and made her breath catch in her throat. “I'm fairly sure it'd never be too late.”

_English Breakfast tea, two sugars_  
“English, there's a man sleeping on our couch,” Angie announced.

“Indeed, there is.” Peggy didn't even look up from her newspaper. “I had a date last night.”

“Still not sure how he ended up on our couch.” Angie peered down at Daniel and shoved an extra pillow behind his head. “Technically Howard Stark's couch, though I try very hard not to think about the kinds of things Howard Stark would be likely to do on a couch with that many tassels.”

“Armed men burst in before we even finished the martinis,” Peggy explained. “I wasn't about to send him back to Queens at three in the morning.” They'd nearly fallen asleep on each other in the cab on the way back, her head slipping against his shoulder as she valiantly fought to stay awake, his arm curled around her waist, the murmur of his voice in her ear as he talked about New York and city lights and her, and when she'd shut her eyes and felt his lips brush against her forehead, she'd imagined what it would be like to get the chance to wake up next to him too.

“You even made him tea, didn't you?” Angie said smugly, glancing over at the two teacups steaming on the table. “You like him.”

“Very much so,” Peggy admitted, trying to hide her (ridiculously giddy) laugh by taking another sip of tea. Because she liked the sight of him asleep on her couch, rumpled shirt and all, and she liked the way that he blushed and apologized when he woke up, and she liked him leaning over her shoulder to read the front page along with her, and she liked him insisting on making her more tea when the pot ran out, measuring out the tea leaves with a careful hand and knowing how she took it without even having to ask.

She liked the way that he met her halfway when she leaned across the table to (finally) kiss him, and the little sigh that he let out against her mouth and, most of all, the way that he kissed her back. His hands in her hair, her name on his lips, and, caught somewhere in his eyes, the kind of promises (the kind that whispered forever) that she knew he'd keep.


End file.
